Word Count: 409
Anne stuck her arms through the day and pulled it around her. Buttoned it up to her chin. She used bright white soft clouds for earmuffs and mittens, now ready to make her way home through the fading sun of the late afternoon.
She found a TV dinner in the freezer dated 1982 and heated it up in the oven. She’d used the microwave once but the noise and blue sparks from the aluminum startled her neighbors and she was in the mood for being alone.
After she ate, she closed all the wide open windows and locked them securely so the darkness couldn’t seep in. She drew the curtains and put on every light. Even lit candles to hold onto the day. But it slowly melted in the heat of her body, layering like lava on the floor. She heaved a great sigh, took off her slippers and socks and squished her toes in the puddle until it all disappeared.
Some people are night folk; Anne certainly was not. The night was full of bad dreams and memories. She would start shivering as evening nibbled its way around her, taking bites of her edges, gobbling her shadow in one monster gulp.
It started when she was a little girl, alone in a bedroom where the gay pink and green floral wallpaper sank into gray along with the walls and the rug. She knew even then that the darkness was dangerous and the sounds that surrounded her, trees tapping on windows, creaking hallways, and the groans from her mother and grunts from her dad in their bedroom made her cry.
In college she lived in the dorms, where noise was a constant but always connected with someone she knew. Even Sylvia, the odd girl who wore two rings in her nose and told everyone she had three breasts and a double vagina, when she flew out the window to freedom left a scream in the air streaming behind.
It was almost in college, it came close where Anne might have found out that night noises were not always as ominous as they sound to the innocent ears of a three year-old child. Had her lovers been thoughtful, skillful, or at least willing to go beyond their own anxious grunting, she might have connected the groaning in sync.
As it is, Anne is twenty-five years old, alone in her bed, and still very afraid of the night.
